This invention relates generally to electrical contacts, and to contacts on circuit boards; more particularly, it concerns providing a basic one-piece contact that has multiple modes of connection to a circuit board as well as connection to circuit components, such as chip leads, for example.
In my U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,195,330 and 4,837,927, there are described means for mounting circuit components, and a light unit, such as an LED for example, to a panel with unusual advantages.
There is presently a need for mounting circuit contacts to circuit boards in different ways or positions. To my knowledge, no way was known prior to the present invention to attach a unitary circuit contact to a discrete mount, in multiple modes, facilitating its positioning in different ways to a circuit board, or to provide a basic unitary contact which optionally connects to the board in different modes, thereby to achieve surprisingly advantageous results as will appear. These include the connection of the contact closed to a mount, lower end below spring fingers which are above that connection, the spring fingers engaging a terminal pin.